Drake R8 vs. R8A
Steve Elliot
Could someone fill me in on the main differences between the
Drake R8 and R8A receivers ?
Thanks, Steve
John Doty
In article <348810EF...@cabletron.com> Steve Elliot
> Could someone fill me in on the main differences between the
> Drake R8 and R8A receivers ?
I wrote the following a couple of years ago:
From jpd Mon Dec 18 16:43:55 1995
Subject: R8A vs R8
Last month, I had a borrowed R8A next to my R8 for about a week.
Here's a brief comparison, from my point of view:
Improvements:
1. Separate buttons to set mode and bandwidth, replacing the clumsy
carousels.
2. A better tone control. On the R8, boosting the bass with the
tone control causes an unpleasant rumbling. This is fixed on the
R8A.
3. Passband offset covers a wider range and is more linear.
4. Better preamplifier dynamic range. If I enable the preamp while
listening below 3 MHz on my R8, I hear harmonics and other mixing
products due to strong local AM stations. No preamp-generated
products are audible on the R8A (but see below).
5. My R8 exhibits faint "birdies" about every 400 kHz. These are
absent on the R8A.
5. More memories, alphanumeric tagging.
Backsliding:
1. Poorer wide-spacing dynamic range without the preamp. On both
the R8 and R8A, a few mixing products due to strong local stations
appear even without the preamplifier. On the R8A, these sound a
bit stronger, and do not disappear when the attenuator is used.
2. The tuning knob looks nicer, but the textured surface on the
dimple raises friction, making it less precise when cranking it
around with the dimple.
Whacky changes designed to annoy R8 owners:
1. The TONE/NOTCH and SQUELCH/PASSBAND OFFSET knob pairs have had
their functions interchanged. The function on the inner knob is
now on the outer knob, and vice-versa. I can't think of a good
reason to do this, and it certainly fouls up entrenched habits.
2. The variable speed tuning is rather more manic. I got used to
it, but I never liked it.
Comments:
Generally, they are very similar receivers. The R8A sounds very
slightly smoother to my ears, but audio clarity is so close that
I can't choose the better one. For listening to programs, or for
digging out tough DX signals, they are fine receivers, equivalent
in performance.
The addition of a few buttons and some display changes are
improvements, but they don't change the basic clumsiness of the
button ergonomics. Drake understands knobs: it doesn't understand
buttons.
The main display on the R8 is used for the time and the frequency,
so you can't see both at once. The R8A adds the name to this list,
so if you're seeing the station name, you won't know what frequency
you're on (or what time it is).
At MIT we're trying to use the R8A as a computer controlled doppler
tracking receiver for low rate telemetry. A colleague who's been
doing the programming has been muttering things like "Just what I
need, another thing that behaves differently from what the
documentation says" and "Somebody ought to slap these people". I
guess the computer interface hasn't been improved much :-).
Conclusions:
The R8 is a fine communications receiver. The R8A is a slightly
improved R8. The improvements are not enough to entice me to upgrade.
Indeed, if both were still on the market, I'd consider the R8 the
better buy since the improvements don't seem to me to be worth the
price increase. In comparison to the competition the R8A remains
an excellent buy, especially with endaka keeping the prices of
Japanese receivers high.
--
John Doty "You can't confuse me, that's my job."
j...@space.mit.edu